Black Family Foundation

The Black Family Foundation, registered with the Internal Revenue Service as the Debra And Leon Black Family Foundation, is the private foundation of the financier Leon Black, cofounder of Apollo Global Management, and his wife, Debra Black. It is administered in care of the family office, Elysium Management, at 445 Park Avenue in New York. Its employer identification number is 13-3947890; the IRS recognized its exemption as of August 1, 1998 and classifies it as a private non-operating foundation.¹ Jeffrey Epstein was one of its directors from its establishment in 1997 and was listed as one on its tax returns until 2012.²³

Epstein's Directorship

According to the report that the law firm Dechert prepared in January 2021 for the conflicts committee of Apollo's board, Black was introduced to Epstein "in the mid-1990's by a mutual friend," and Epstein "introduced Black to well-regarded researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and encouraged Black to donate to charitable causes that supported scientific development." The report continued:²

In 1997, Black appointed Epstein as one of the initial directors of the Black Family Foundation, which was established for the purpose of facilitating contributions by Black and his family to philanthropic endeavors. Black was further impressed when he learned that David Rockefeller had appointed Epstein as a director to the Board of Rockefeller University.

The reference is to David Rockefeller and Rockefeller University. Epstein was one of the foundation's seven original trustees. Black's representative told the investigators reviewing Epstein's ties to Harvard University that Epstein resigned in July 2007 "at the family's request."⁴ The Dechert report put the resignation in "mid-2007" and stated: "However, due to an oversight, the IRS Form 990s filed for the Black Family Foundation during the period 2008-2012 failed to reflect his resignation. Following discovery of the error in or around 2013, the Black Family Foundation issued a confirmation of his earlier resignation." Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. Dechert found that Black did not engage Epstein for any services until 2012.² In a July 2019 email to Apollo staff reported by Forbes, Black attributed the listing to a "recording error" and said he had stepped down in 2007.³

The confirmation, headed "Leon Black Family Foundation, Inc. / Confirmation of Resignation of Jeffrey Epstein as a Director and a Member of the Executive Committee of the Foundation," describes the foundation as "a Delaware not-for-profit corporation." It states: "The Foundation has been unable to locate either the signed original or a signed copy of the Resignation in its records, but hereby confirms that the Resignation was signed by Jeffrey Epstein and submitted to the Foundation in July 2007, and was also acknowledged to have been received by Debra Black, as Secretary of the Foundation, who signed the acknowledgement in July 2007." It attributes the listing of Epstein as a director on the foundation's Forms 990PF "for each of the years ending 2007 through and including 2012" to "an oversight by the Foundation's tax accountants which was not noticed until 2013," and continues: "The Foundation hereby agrees to indemnify Mr. Epstein for any and all claims that may be asserted against Mr. Epstein arising out of the incorrect disclosure in such Forms 990PF of Mr. Epstein as a Director of the Foundation." The document carries a signature block for the foundation by Leon Black as president and a confirmation by Epstein that "he signed the Resignation and submitted it to the Foundation in July 2007" and "has not acted on behalf of the Foundation in any capacity" since. The attached copy of the resignation, in which Epstein resigned "as director of the Leon Black Family Foundation, Inc., a Delaware corporation," has its date line blank, and the line "Received on ___ 2007: DEBRA R. BLACK, Secretary" is also blank.⁵

A 108-page "Assignment and Assumption Agreement" dated June 7, 2007, in the Justice Department's Epstein releases, transferred limited-partner, member and stockholder interests to a separate Black entity, Black Family Partners, L.P., with signature blocks for "Debra Black, Trustee" and "Barry Cohen, Trustee."⁶

Grants

The foundation's reported revenue, which consists of contributions, was 500,001 dollars in 2011, 1,000,009 dollars in 2012, 1,750,002 dollars in 2013, 12,142,003 dollars in 2014, 4,598,706 dollars in 2015 and 3,816,952 dollars in 2019; its reported year-end assets did not exceed 640,058 dollars in any of those years.¹

On October 30, 2015 the foundation gave 1,000,000 dollars to Martin Nowak's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard, the last of three gifts totaling 7 million dollars that followed gifts of 2 million dollars in November 2011 and 4 million dollars in December 2014 from Leon and Debra Black personally. Harvard's review listed them among gifts from donors whom Epstein had introduced, at a time when the university had stopped accepting Epstein's own money; Epstein's accountant and staff acted as intermediaries, and the gift letters earmarked the money for Nowak's research and permitted its use for the program's rent at One Brattle Square. Black's representative told Harvard's investigators that "none of the funds were provided by Mr. Epstein" and that "no attempt was made to conceal the source of these gifts."⁴

Dechert found that Black made donations at Epstein's request to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, the Arizona State University Origins Project and the Peace Initiative Foundation, and a 10 million dollar donation in October 2015 to Epstein's Gratitude America; Epstein, at Black's request, made "significant donations" on at least two occasions to the Melanoma Research Alliance, "a charitable foundation established by Black and his wife." A 2015 IRS filing showed the 10 million dollar gift to Gratitude America coming from a company called BV70 at the address of Black's family investment firm.²³

On January 18, 2019 Epstein's accountant Richard Kahn of HBRK Associates wrote to Brad Wechsler under the subject "The Origins Project Donations from Leon Black and Leon Black Family Foundation": "It appears that all of the funds donated by Leon and the Leon Black Family Foundation to The Origins Project were not used. I believe the balance that remains is approximately 607,000. Jeffrey also had unused funds for his donations and sent his balance to the MIT Media Lab. I have drafted a letter if you would like to do the same. If so Leon will need to sign." The Origins Project was the program of the physicist Lawrence Krauss at Arizona State; the reference to Epstein's balance is to the MIT Media Lab. Wechsler replied on January 22 that the proposal "seems to make sense to me" and that he would deal with it when he saw Black that Thursday, and Kahn forwarded the exchange to Epstein with the words "please advise on response."⁷ Epstein was arrested in July 2019.

Requests to the foundation also reached Epstein's office. In May 2015 a representative of Sunrise Israel, an Israeli charity for children with cancer, asked Epstein's assistant Lesley Groff to forward to Epstein "our request for support from the Leon Black family foundation"; in June 2016 the same charity wrote again to Groff under the subject "Sunrise Israel- request for support from the Leon Black Family Foundation," and Groff forwarded the message to Epstein.⁸⁹